But then she had never yet met George Pennicut. And George, pawn of
fate, was even now waiting round the corner to upset her record.

George, man of all work to Kirk Winfield, one of the youngest and least
efficient of New York's artist colony, was English. He had been in
America some little time, but not long enough to accustom his rather
unreceptive mind to the fact that, whereas in his native land vehicles
kept to the left, in the country of his adoption they kept to the
right; and it was still his bone-headed practice, when stepping off the
sidewalk, to keep a wary look-out in precisely the wrong direction.

The only problem with regard to such a man is who will get him first.
Fate had decided that it should be Lora Delane Porter.

To-day Mrs. Porter, having circled the park in rapid time, turned her
car down Central Park West. She was feeling much refreshed by the
pleasant air. She was conscious of a glow of benevolence toward her
species, not excluding even the young couple she had almost reduced to
mincemeat in the neighbourhood of Ninety-Seventh Street. They had
annoyed her extremely at the time of their meeting by occupying till
the last possible moment a part of the road which she wanted herself.

On reaching Sixty-First Street she found her way blocked by a lumbering
delivery wagon. She followed it slowly for a while; then, growing tired
of being merely a unit in a procession, tugged at the steering-wheel,
and turned to the right.

George Pennicut, his anxious eyes raking the middle distance--as
usual, in the wrong direction--had just stepped off the kerb. He